For the nine days, Gonzo and I would travel more than 2,500 miles together and sample more than 130 different types of pizza to find the best in the state.

It started off slow: three places in Kalamazoo on Sunday, two on the lakeshore on Monday. But then, on Wednesday, we got to work: three restaurants in the Jackson area and three in Ann Arbor. One place brought out 10 different styles of pizza for us to try.

If that wasn't enough, we stopped at Tomateos Apizza in Farmington Hills as a "surprise" visit. Although it was our seventh stop of the day, the pizza was so good that I ate four whole slices.

But the slices add up fast.

We would arrive at the restaurant and meet up with the local photographer and reporter. The owner or chef would come out to greet us and we would ask them about their pizza: the dough, the sauce, what kind of cheese they use, the type of ovens and fuel. I would then go in the kitchen with a photographer and get images of the pizzas being made.

The pizza would then be brought to the table. Before we dug in, I needed to get photos of each pizza for a project I was working on. I had to scold some reporters who jumped the gun -- sorry Will Ketchum! We would try each pizza, take notes and discuss. One type of pizza at the time.

I knew from the previous searches that the key would be to pace ourselves. Take a bite, move on to the next. And if something was so amazingly good, take two, maybe three bites.

Gonzo had taught me well in this regard. But pizza was something new and much more complicated.

There's the first bite and there's the crust. So at least two bites. And if it's a pleasing pizza, that's a whole slice, if not two.

And it's hard to slow down. Another hamburger seems daunting. But pizza? There's always another slice there. And what's another slice?

"It required a lot more stamina than beer," Gonzo told me as we drove to the Upper Peninsula earlier this week for the last section of our journey. "It wasn't like a coney dog or a burger, its bigger than my head."

We did have a lot of leftovers, but also a lot of newsrooms to send the pizza when we were finished.

We also heard the same question from people throughout the search: did the pizza all start tasting the same after a while?

"No, not really, to me they all had different flavors," Gonzalez told me. "There's a sweet sauce, a tart sauce. Some sauces had a lot of parmesan cheese or Romano cheese, others had none. Some had heavy cheese, some light. Some were had a blend of cheese, some just mozzarella."

"That's the best thing about pizza," Gonzalez said. "There are so many styles, you don't have to select just one."

When we started the burger tour, the food really wasn't one of my favorites. Now, I can hardly order a burger without questioning the wait staff about how its prepared and being a critic after my first bite.

I saw the same education during the pizza search. We learned the importance of making dough, letting it sit overnight versus using it the same day, ingredients for sauce and different kinds of cheese.

"I have more respect for the dough," Gonzo said.

Everyone had their own secret recipes for dough and sauce. The laughs and smiles owners and chefs gave us were priceless. They were amused that we would want to know their secrets, but were great though at explaining enough of their process for us to have a deeper understanding of what makes a good pizza. Halfway though, John and I started quizzing each other on what was in the dough, sauce and what kind of oven they were using.

It's true for every Michigan's Best search: the restaurants selected by readers are all passionate and care about the food. Every place we stopped at made excellent pizza. We would go back to any of them again.

But having pizza be the primary food for more than a week wore down on me: my body basically started saying halfway through the search that it didn't want any more pizza. I started getting headaches and, by the time we reached the Upper Peninsula, I was sick.

Over the course of the tour, I gained about six pounds -- Gonzalez on the other hand lost three!

I am excited to get back on a schedule, have fruit juice and smoothies, and get back in the groove of exercising.

"Eating is not about quantity," Gonzalez said. "Great food is meant to be savored, appreciated, respected. Food should be enjoyable and not hurt you at the end of the day."

The afternoon I came back to Lansing after the search, I got to work on the photos and video for the trip. This was to be my first full day without pizza. There was a meeting earlier in the day and there was leftover lunch.

My editor Meegan Holland came into the main office area and said: "There's one and a half pieces of pizza back here, someone has to eat it."

I hesitated. No one else was getting up. I went to the back room, grabbed the slice of lukewarm slice of Hawaiian pizza. It was excellent.